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Reading list

Essays on Poetics

These essays can be found in Gary Geddes's excellent Anthology: 20th-Century Poetry & Poetics (4th edn), published in 1996 by Oxford UP. I strongly encourage you to consult the following:

1. Interview with Al Purdy (Geddes 891-897)

2. Daphne Marlatt, “musing with mothertongue” (Geddes 859-862)

3. Don McKay “Some Remarks on Poetry and Poetic Attention” (Geddes 858)

Author Biographies and Poems

Here are some additional poems which you might want to consult. In addition to Geddes's anthology, I have cited an equally impressive collection of poems edited by Margaret Atwood. The collection, which is also published by Oxford UP is entitled: The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English (1983).  

1. bp Nichol

  •  “Blues” [1974] (Geddes 560)
  •  From “The Captain Poetry Poems” [1971] (Geddes 561)
  •  “What is Can lit?” [1973] (Geddes 562)
  •  “Allegory #6” [1974] (Geddes 564)
  • “Landscape I” [1980] (Geddes 565)
  • “The Mouth” [1988] (Geddes 566)

2. Earle Birney

  •  “Vancouver Lights” [1941] (Geddes 152)
  •  “Bushed” [1951] (Geddes 161)

3. Al Purdy

  •  “Eskimo Graveyard” [1967] (Geddes 169)
  • “Arctic Rhododendrons” [1967] (Geddes 171)
  •  “Lament for the Dorsets” [1968] (Geddes 172)

4. Gwendolyn MacEwen

  • “Poems in Braille” [1966] (Geddes 420)
  • “You can study it if you want” [1987] (Geddes 432)

5. Margaret Atwood

  •  “Progressive Insanities of a pioneer” [1968] (Geddes 491)
  •  “Death of a young son by drowning” [1970] (Geddes 495)
  • “Marrying the hangman” [1978] (Atwood 352)
  • “Marsh Hawk” [1977]

6. Lorna Crozier

  • “Onions” [1985] (Geddes 677)
  •  “Forms of Innocence” [1985] (Geddes 675)

7. P.K. Page

  • “Stories of Snow” [1946] (Atwood 179)
  •  “The Snowman” [1967] (Atwood 182)

8. Elizabeth Brewster “Death by Drowning” (Atwood 225)

9. Daphne Marlatt “Femina” [1975] (Atwood 395)

10. Leonard Cohen “How to speak poetry” [1978] (Geddes 416)

11. Paulette Jiles “Windigo” [1984?](Atwood 403)

12. Charles Lilliard “Bushed” [1980] (Atwood 424)

13. Doug Herling “Explorers as seen by the natives” [1974] (Atwood 463)

14. James Reaney “The Upper Canadian” [1949] (Atwood 254)

15. Barry McKinnon “Bushed” [1980] (Atwood 424)